Below is a picture of my tote as designed in Fusion 360 with the Pinewood finish added. Also, here is the link to the Fusion file..
Design Overview: For my laser cut tote, I did mostly the same design as my handmade tote, but I resized a few dimensions based on how my first one came out, and so that I could fit the pieces into three sheets of plywood (less money!). I felt that my handmade tote was a bit to tall, and I could make it a little shorter and it would still serve the same purpose. I also added some feet to this tote which are much easier to cut with the laser than by hand. Finally, I've got a good friend who is an artist and designer, so I decided to engrave the logo for his brand, Creamy, onto the box, so that I can give it to him as a gift. You can see the logo I wanted to engrave in the screenshot of the illustrator file below.
The Process: As noted earlier, I was able to fit all the pieces on three sheets of plywood which was nice. The first struggle I had was finding three sheets of plywood that were completely (or mostly) flat without and bowing. I had seen from other projects that the bowed wood was affecting the cut quite a bit, as you would imagine. I found three pretty flat pieces, and started with a scaled down version of one side as a small test cut to get the settings right. Then, I started cutting the pieces. When measuring the thickness of the sheets, I found that it wasn't exactly the same on all parts of the wood, so this might affect how the pieces fit together since I based the slots on the thickness. I had to just use an average and update my fusion file, and hope that it worked out. I knew that the engrave pieces would take a while because they're pretty detailed, so I started with the bottom and center piece cuts to test if my chosen thickness would work for fitting them together. Luckily, it did work the first time. Below is are pictures of the bottom of center pieces, and how they fit together.
Since the wood was a little bowed, the cut didn't quite go all the way through on part of the middle piece, but it was close enough that I could just cut it out with an X-Acto knife and still have a clean cut. After confirming those fit, I made the engrave cuts, which you can see below. I had to polish off some of the burn marks, but I was really happy with how these came out.
Once all the pieces were cut out, I assembled the box once with out any glue to ensure it all fit together. This was honestly problem the hardest/most frustrating part of the project. Figuring out the easiest order to assemble in was the first task. I knew I needed the middle pieces together and attached to the bottom first, but when I did this it was really tough to get the front and back pieces to both fit on. So I switched to some other methods, none of which worked, so I returned to the original attempt. Since the wood was slightly bent, that was making it tough to fit perfectly together. If I'm being honest, it probably took me almost 30 minutes to get it to assemble the first time, but finally I had it! The next step was to disassemble all that hard work so I could glue it all together (yay). I used the same process though, and it was a bit easier the second time. When I glued the center pieces together, that helped hold them in line for putting on the front and back pieces. Then I just had to glue the slots in the four corners of the box for everything to stay together. Of course, when I finished the glue I used some clamps to hold it firmly together while it dried. In the end, I was really happy with how it turned out, and much more satisfied than I was with the handmade tote. I guess I should accept that robots are better than me now...
Cost Estimates:
$1/sheet of plywood * 3 sheets = $3.00
$30/hr of Zing use * 45 min = $22.50
$10/hr cutting time * 45 min = $7.50
$10/hr designing time * 3 hr = $30.00
$10/hr assembly time * 2 hr = $20.00
Total Cost (1 prototype): $83.00
For 100 more copies, the cost of buying the wood in bulk would be much cheaper, so I'll estimate $0.50/sheet of plywood. Laser cut time will still be the same for each piece, but I won't have to design again, and assembly and cutting time can be combined since I can do both at the same time. Assembly should also go quicker per tote with multiple assemblies. So I'll estimate 8$/hr and 1.5 hours of assembly/cutting.
$0.50/sheet of plywood * 3 sheets = $1.50
$30/hr of Zing use * 45 min = $22.50
$8/hr assembly * 1.5 hr = $12.00
Total cost (1 of 100 copies): $36.00
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